Postcards from The Hedge - Dispatch 2
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.~Mary Oliver
Welcome to our second dispatch of
Postcards from the Hedge.
This month's care package has been prepared by Vanessa Reid, our co-faculty at the Hedge School.
Dear Friends,
Sometimes a thread of a poem or song catches me and travels with me for a bit. It becomes a companion, a map, a kind of dream figure that sends me deeper into some aspect of life that I’d left by the wayside.
This little fragment from Mary Oliver’s Sometimes has traveled with me since last April, 2020, when Maria and I were invited as Guides to Kathy’s first Hedge School online, as response to the global pandemic. Almost a full year later, we are still traveling with Hedge School but now as Faculty. And these three little lines have not let go of me yet.
I write to you still catching my breath from traveling the Imbolc spiral of Hedge School with a circle of fellow travelers, kindred spirits, guides and musicians spanning the world - from Ireland, to India, Australia, Africa, Europe, Turtle Island/North America.
This is the way with Hedge School. It’s an Irish drumbeat with a global resonance.
And one of the most extraordinary gifts of the Celtic Wheel is its exquisite paying attention to each season. Remembering our way back into the natural cycles to orient us to deeper and wilder life. Remembering that nature’s wisdom and gifts - both mythic and practical - are available to us always. It’s a matter of turning towards, of shifting perception, of listening with ears and eyes and whole body wide open.
In the paying attention, something new stirs, grows.
There is a lot growing here in the thickets of the hedge - and here is a bit of what were are noticing:
A rising howl from the wild parts of ourselves claiming space at the hearth. From the roots of the old Germanic “wunde” we see that wound and wonder can wind together into a new story. Our disavowed parts, the shamed and betrayed, the parts that did not “succeed” or were not accepted by a mainstream too small for our wilderness are showing up at Hedge School: “We are here and we are needed and we are powerful.” These have been the missing parts to our collective wholeness, and they come alive here at the Hedge School to fuel our larger and longer stories.
Hosting powerful questions creates a kind of alchemy. Our Guides and Musicians bring us to new places, expand our view, touch our souls and astonish our senses. And it is in the space between us that new understanding and potential grows. As part of our hosting practice, we ask powerful questions for you to travel with and live into. We invite you to witness each other digest new insight. We create a space where new wisdom comes from the centre between us – and is nothing we could have imagined on our own.
Our ancestors are calling us to rise up rooted. “Healing cannot happen in the colonizer’s language,” said our Guide Aunty Delta Kay. Áine Tyrrell then sang us into decolonizing our imaginations, honouring, healing and drawing strength from our complex lineages to take purposeful action now. Together, they said, “Our ancestors brought us together.”
What are your ancestors calling you to stand up for now?
Pay attention to what they tell you.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
Warmly,
Vanessa Reid,
Hedge School faculty member at The Trailblazery
Writing to you from Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), as a settler on the traditional, unceded and unsurrendered territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) Nation who have long been stewards of these lands and waters.
Hedge School Co-Faculty
Living Wholeness Institute
Art of Hosting-Athens
Wolf Willow Institute
TEDx Conscious Closure and the Wild Life of Dying
Announcement
Bealtaine Spiral at the Hedge School
We are delighted to announce that our friend David Whyte {poet, author, speaker and leadership consultant} will be joining us for this Spiral. Full announcements and booking to come soon. Watch this space.
You can join David in March online for a literary and mythic pilgrimage to many of the great pilgrim sites of the West of Ireland, in the imaginative company of many of his close friends, some of whom may even join the conversation as special guests.
AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A Mythopoetic Tour of the West of Ireland
March 7th, 14th and 21st
10am Pacific Time
Hedge School Highlights
Watch some golden moments from our Hedge School guides who remind us to mind ourselves, each other and this place we call home
Hedge School Website
Recommended Resources
Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta
Localizing Knowledge, Decolonizing Our Minds with Manish Jain (video)
Words Create Worlds with Dominique Ashaheed (video)
Imagining Peace with Pádraig Ó Tuama (video)
Cultural Mining with Delta Kay (video)
Turtle Island Institute
David Whyte
What is Submerging by Nora Bateson
Art
Below are two beautiful collages created by Isvara, one of our recent Imbolc Spiral Hedge School alumni, inspired by her time at the Hedge School community.
Here are a few watching and listening pieces inspired by the Hedge School to mind you this week:
Watch | Emma Langford "Birdsong" - A Salute to the Women of the Mise Fosta And Fairplé Movements
Watch | Áine Tyrell. We Call You Now featuring Emily Wurramara. A song about solidarity. We Call you now. Remember who you are. Your ancestors they dreamt this.
Listen | Sounds True with David Whyte
David Whyte grew up among the hills and valleys of Yorkshire, England. A captivating speaker with a compelling blend of poetry and insightful commentary, David Whyte is one of the few poets to take his perspectives on creativity into the field of organizational development, where he works with a diverse international clientele. He has traveled extensively including working as a naturalist guide and leading anthropological and natural history expeditions in the Galapagos, the Andes, and the Himalayas. He brings this wealth of experience to his poetry, his lectures, and his workshops.